A retired garda and former member of the unit known as the murder squad, Gerry O’Carroll, was described as a “force of nature” who was made to be a policeman at a funeral service in Dublin on Saturday.
A former detective inspector, Mr O’Carroll, who died in his native Kerry on Tuesday, was involved in dozens of investigations into serious crime during his career, many of them high-profile.
He was part of the 1984 inquiry into what became known as the Kerry babies case and for many years persisted in the erroneous view that Joanne Hayes was the mother of two babies, including “Baby John” who was found dead on White Strand, outside Cahersiveen, in April of that year. DNA evidence subsequently showed that this was not the case.
At a packed service in the Mount Jerome Crematorium in Dublin, Mr O’Carroll’s brother, Fr Joe O’Carroll, said “the gardaí were his life” and that he was “made for the job, loved every second of it, the challenge, the craic, the controversy”.
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Describing his brother as a “formidable giant of a man,” he said you “took him on at your peril”. He was a “force of nature, a larger than life character who had his own unique way of communicating his love of life, his sense of fun, his eternally youthful approach to life”.
Mr O’Carroll was a gifted communicator and a consummate storyteller whose family were crucial to him and whose family loved him dearly, Fr Carroll said. He had a very good mind, was complex and simple in equal measure, and “firmly believed he was always right”.
Mr O’Carroll’s son, Conor, said that despite being exposed to many dark things during his career with An Garda Síochána, his father had never allowed this affect his relationship with his family. “He was an absolute legend of a dad”, a large spiritual and physical presence who had made the family home in Rathfarnham, Dublin, “a beautiful place for us” and a welcoming place for others.
In a message from the US read out to the service, one of Mr O’Carroll’s brothers, Philip, said his late brother was a “complex and unique individual” and “one of the most loveable human beings I have ever known”.
At the end of the service a Garda inspector’s hat and gloves that had been laid on the coffin were formally presented to Mr O’Carroll’s wife as a mark of recognition for his service over the course of his career.
A large number of serving and retired members of An Garda Síochána were in attendance at the service, as well as extended family and friends.
Mr O’Carroll is survived by his wife Kathleen, his sons Conor, Philip and Brian, daughters Margaret and Eleanor, in-laws, grandchildren, siblings, and extended family.
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